I hadn't played any of the Gears games before, until it was offered as a free download as part of the Games with Gold program (not exactly free, since you have to pay for membership, but ...). I've discovered some great games via this program, games I wouldn't have tried otherwise. I had a lot of fun with this game, it's pretty much a straightforward shooter, which is what I like. There are a variety of weapons, though I pretty much used the Lancer as my main weapon and used either a shotgun or the boomshot as my secondary.
I liked it so much that I ordered the rest of the Gears games from Amazon (which I'm sure is the whole point of giving away games, you give one game and hope people get hooked and buy more).